Bathing like queens

One of my core principles in life is that I simply must have a holiday or city break every single month. If I don't, I start to fade away like Tinkerbell without attention. Despite the fact that February was a rather manic month of home renovations, I still managed to follow my core principle and squeezed in a little UK city break. For someone so well-travelled, I feel like I've still been to relatively little of my own country and for a while I've been trying to see more local places. Me and mum were planning a girly weekend away and I had a clear front runner in terms of UK city break options; Bath. So off we went!

Nothing feels like a better cheeky win than when you arrive at your hotel before check-in time and your room is actually ready. This was the case at the Hampton hotel where were we staying, which had the loveliest rooms and was really perfectly located for exploring.

After dropping the bags off, we headed out into the rain in search of some lunch. We were booked in at the thermal spa in the afternoon so we basically found a pub as close as humanly possible to that, to minimise the walking-in-the-rain situation. The pub was super cute and I had the prettiest gin I think I've ever been served. There's a Bath Gin Company who make loads of flavoured ones locally and I was really tempted to buy a bottle but it was £38 and my home bar is overflowing already so I ruled against it in the end. But it was very nice! 

The main thing that drew me to the idea of visiting Bath was obviously its namesake, the baths. You can't swim in the Roman baths but the Thermae spa uses the same thermal waters from thousands of years ago which I think is pretty cool. You can book a spa package there which includes a treatment of your choice but the prices start from about £150 per person. Because we had other plans for while we were away, it seemed like a bit of a time and money drain. Luckily, they offer a welcome package which is £40 per person for 2 hours which I didn't think was bad at all and perfect for if you're only in Bath a short time and are trying to pack stuff in. You'll notice that my photos from the spa are not ones I could've taken on my own iphone and that's because upon arrival they tell you they have a no phones policy in the spa. And then they proceed to give you a tiny jail to lock your phone in, which can only be released by a special key at reception as you leave. So me and mum couldn't even get a selfie in our robes! As a marketing specialist, I thought it was a weird choice, especially since so many people discover tourist spots on instagram and TikTok. But having been to the spa, I now sceptically think that it's a deliberate marketing decision to stop people from realising that the facilities don't match the price tag! Don't get me wrong, it was a really cool experience. But that was because of the thermal waters and the rooftop pool with amazing views of the city. The spa had virtually no other facilities, the 'relaxation rooms' looked like GP waiting rooms, and it all felt a bit dated and run down. For £40 I didn't mind, but if I'd paid £150, I'd be expecting something a hell of a lot more luxurious. Luxury or no luxury though we had a fabulous time and the rain just added to the fun. The sun even started to come out towards the end and the dusk hour looked beautiful from the roof.

After a couple of hours relaxing (and washing the thermal water out of our hair), we were ready to head out for some drinks. I went with dressy casual in a shirt dress that's a tiny bit too short to be considered a dress on anything other than a ratchet night out. So I added some leggings for decency and then paid with slouchy pointy boots and a chunky belt. Mum had done a bit of googling and found a cute tiny little cocktail bar called The Hideout, which served the most amazing, inventive cocktails. Look at this intricate leaf that garnished mine!

I always like to go to independent restaurants when I go to different cities. Well, when I'm in my own city too to be fair, but I'll make allowances when I'm local. You'll never catch me in a slug and lettuce in another city. So when I was researching restaurants, I also took the opportunity to see if there were any cuisines we don't have in Nottingham and found a gorgeous looking Argentinian restaurant, Edesia. I love all South American cuisines anyway but the interior looked really pretty too and just the right vibe for a dinner and drinks night. The food was amazing and although I never normally fancy chocolatey desserts, this mousse was one of the most incredible things I've ever had.

As I mentioned, the main thing I wanted to do in Bath was the roman baths so that's exactly where we started the next day! It was a lot bigger than I expected it to be, as there were actually a few different baths and various sections of museum to go round (whereas all the photos just show the main bath). It was really beautiful and interesting, although I have to admit that mum and I skipped round a lot of the museum with more speed than a lot of other visitors. while it was cool, it was mostly fragments of Italian architecture which, if you've ever been to Italy, you'll know you can see gorgeous ancient buildings on every corner.

After a cute little coffee pit stop, we headed on a little wander uphill to see The Circus and the Royal Crescent, both of which are essentially just pretty rows/curves of buildings. The whole of Bath was really beautiful in its architecture and I love cities that have a lot of stone buildings. The only thing I would say about these two hotspots were that I wish they were parking free zones. In so many cities around the world, parked cars just ruin the aesthetic! Although these areas were both used as filming locations in Bridgerton so if you want to see them car-free, you could definitely have a look there! In fact, I wore an outfit with a nod to Bridgerton in this pretty high neck blue lace top.

Another Bath tourist attraction was the Pulteney Bridge so we headed there for a nosey, where we quickly got caught in a classic British downpour! So we ducked into the Guildhall market to escape the weather and it ended up being a really lovely place to have a nosey around. Loads of cute little shops and stalls with everything from jewellery to Moroccan ornaments. Plus the building itself was pretty cool!

With the sun back out, we headed to the Abbey. There was an option to do the tower as part of the ticket, but you had to do it as a tour and the nect one wasn't for another 30 minutes so we opted just to have a look around the main bit instead. It was such a beautiful building and is apparently famed for having the most beautiful ceiling in all of Europe (at one point or another anyway). There was also a cool little interactive museum bit downstairs which was fun and gave you the whole history of the abbey - I always find stuff like that super interesting.

We were starving by this point, despite more than loading up at the hotel breakfast, so we went in search of some lunch. Again, I was keen to avoid any of the main chains, which was kind of unfortunate because we were in an area that had loads of them! But skipping past the Las Iguanas and Zizzi, we found a lovely little gastropub called Hall & Woodhouse where we had a nice lunch and a couple of drinks (it was prosecco o'clock).

We rounded off a lovely afternoon with a bit of book shopping! Me and mum are both avid readers so we had a fun time browsing in this cute little book shop and both treated ourselves to some new ones. We also stopped off in this lovely chocolate shop with a Jane Austen theme, although left empty handed as they wanted £40 a box and they didn't even look that good (scandalous).

We rounded off our lovely little weekend (well, pre-weekend technically as we went Thursday-Saturday) with another night of drinks and gorgeous food. We started at a cosy little pub for one, and then went to our reservation at La Perla. Tapas is always my go-to and I fell immediately in love with the cellar style of this restaurant. The food was absolutely incredible and it was so lovely to have some quality mother daughter time. And Bath proved to be the perfect choice for stopping me from fading away like Tinkerbell.